


And the World Moved On

by LowkeySalient



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blood and Violence, Character Death, Insane Wilbur Soot, Insanity, Mild Gore, Phil Watson-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Winged Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), button room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 05:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29836869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LowkeySalient/pseuds/LowkeySalient
Summary: My brain went: what if Phil actually killed Wilbur in a desperate attempt to stop him from pushing the button, instead of after? And I decided that was worth writing... Have some angst!
Relationships: Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	And the World Moved On

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thank you to the lovely LesEnfantsPleurent for encouraging me to write this, beta-reading for me, and helping me through posting process! I probably would have given up otherwise

Wilbur’s voice echoed down the tunnel, angry and distorted. Phil picked up his pace, adrenaline pushing his body to move faster, just a little faster. Being late wasn’t an option. 

He slowed as he saw the tunnel open up into a small, torch-lit room ahead. Wilbur was at the far end of it, slamming one hand into the stone wall with a wordless shout.

“What are you doing?” Phil braced a hand against the door frame, struggling to catch his breath after the all-out sprint to this room. He really was getting too old for this.

Wilbur froze, going unnaturally still, then slowly turned towards him. “Phil?”

“Wil.”

“How are you here?” Wilbur's voice was soft, almost hopeful.

He brushed off the question, instinctively scanning the younger man, noting the cuts and scrapes, the torn, faded coat, the scar on his cheek that hadn’t been there before. Phil kept his voice calm and kind, “I flew over as quickly as I could after your last letter. I wanted to check in on you and see what you were doing.”

Wilbur laughed once, words tumbling over each other in a rush. “I wasn’t doing anything! We just elected a new president, we made Tubbo president. We won! We won the war. Schlatt’s gone, Schlatt’s dead. We won!”

Phil thought of Tommy’s frantic handwriting and words he’d jammed together on a scrap of paper tucked into the envelope of Wilbur’s last letter.  _ He’s going to blow it up _ . _ It’ll all be gone. You need to stop him, Phil, please. Wil’s lost his mind.  _

"Uh-huh," Phil stepped further into the room, looking pointedly at the button behind Wilbur. "What are you doing?"

"...I will admit-" he paused, took a breath, straightened his shoulders. "Do you know what this button is?"

"Uh-huh. I do." Phil tried to keep his voice calm, starting to take a step forward until Wil flinched closer to the button.

"Have you heard the song on the walls before- have you heard the song?" He smiled dreamily, voice gaining momentum, "I was just saying that there was a special place, there was a special place where men could go and emancipate, but it’s not there anymore," his words trailed into a defeated whisper.

“It is there; you’ve just won it back, you said so yourself.”

Snapping his gaze away from the erratic scrawlings on the walls, Wilbur glared at his father. “Phil, I am always so close to pushing this button! I have been here seven or eight times. Seven or eight times!”

He tangled one hand in his hair yanking at it as he spun back to the button, reaching out with his free hand before letting it fall limp. 

Before Phil could respond, before he could sort out his thoughts and decide between shouting at his lost, broken son or hugging him and never letting go, a faint voice echoed down the tunnel from outside and something thundered on the hill overhead, shaking dirt loose from the ceiling. Wil shook his head violently, “No, no, they’re going to come and join us. I need to block this off. I don’t want them here, I don’t  _ want _ them in here.”

The man stalked forward and destroyed the tunnel’s support with one vicious swipe of his sword, sending a small section of rocks and dirt crumbling in to block the exit. Even in madness, Wil had planned ahead. 

Phil started for the button, thinking to keep his son away from it, but Wilbur shot him a vicious glare and pushed past to gently rest a hand on it. 

“Phil, I have been here so, so many times-” another faint, muffled boom cut him off and he dragged a hand down his face, voice rising in frustration. “They’re fighting! They’re fighting, Phil! They just fixed everything, they won their little war, and they’re already squabbling again! This is exactly how all this started!”

His hand twitched to the hilt of his sword as his voice rose in concerned disbelief. “You said everyone came together, that you won, yet you want to just blow it all up?”

He groaned softly, voice no more than a breathy whisper. “I do, yeah, I do…”

“You fought so hard to get this land back-” Phil broke off as the other man spun to face him. He knew those rich, dark eyes that were once filled with laughter, knew that mouth, normally so quick to tease and make quips, knew those unruly brown curls that tumbled out from under his beanie. Yet he couldn’t for the life of him recognize the person standing in front of him. This wasn’t his sweet, strong-willed son who’d set out to make his name all those years ago. The boy who’d built up a nation so the people he loved could live in peace, safe and free from oppression. When had he fallen so far? Why hadn’t Phil seen it sooner? 

“My L’manberg, Phil, my unfinished symphony!” For a moment, his face shone with elation and fierce pride, before it twisted into something darker, something entirely sinister. “But it’s not, it’s not mine anymore. 

In the brief, stunned silence that followed, he turned back to the button. “I don’t even know if it works anymore, Phil, I don’t even know if this button works! I could press it, it might do nothing, I could- press it." he sucked in a breath sharply, looking at the button once more.

“Do you really want to take that risk? There’s a lot of TNT hooked up to that button, and all those people out there, your friends, are innocent.” Another small explosion somewhere above them belied his words, but he pushed ahead, stepping closer. “They don’t deserve this. They don’t deserve to die like this, after everything you’ve been through together!”

Wilbur seemed to hesitate for a moment, but then he grinned. “It’s too late, Phil, you can’t stop this.”

“Wilbur, please--”

“It’s too late! If I don’t finish this, someone else will. It’s  _ my _ L’manberg, my unfinished symphony. And, one way or another, it will remain forever unfinished.”

“What does that mean?”

“Dream said earlier -- he told everyone -- that there was no traitor. He lied, Phil, he lied. It’s Technoblade.”

The breath left his lungs in a rush as nausea climbed his throat. Technoblade. The most powerful person on the server. Phil’s oldest and dearest friend.  
Wilbur was grinning now, a wild light in his eyes. “It’s Techno and he has eight withers ready to be released.”

“What?” Phil roared, half-turning back to the tunnel before catching himself.

It was too late; the distraction had cost him everything. 

“There was a saying, Phil, by a man once part of L’manberg. It was never meant to be.” His hand reached for the button in slow motion.

He tried to run forward, but his limbs were sluggish and stiff. He had to stop this, he couldn’t let his son become a mass-murderer, he had to stop him. His arm moved faster than his legs, drawing a sword and striking in a well-practiced maneuver that had nothing to do with his desperately racing thoughts. Blood splattered. He stared in horror at his sword that was embedded straight through Wilbur’s chest and into the wall behind him. Slowly raising his eyes, he met his son’s calm, contented gaze as the younger man whispered, “Forever unfinished.”

Looking to the side, he saw Wilbur’s hand slip off the button as his body slumped over, dragging the sword out of Phil’s numb hand. A soft hiss echoed in his ears as the tang of gunpowder filled the air. Then everything went white and the air was screaming.

* * *

Phil was lying on the ground. When had he gotten there? He pushed himself up and groaned as agony spiked through his entire body. Every inch of his skin was raw and throbbing. He tried to spread his wings and froze as ice rushed down his spine. He couldn’t feel anything. The point in his back where they connected felt cold and scorched, but he felt nothing where the wings should be. He couldn’t even twitch them, though the attempt sent another wave of pain ripping through his back.

Where was Wilbur? He tried to speak, but the sound was muffled and nearly drowned out by ringing in his ears. Looking to the wall where the button had been, he saw nothing but a jagged hole that opened out to a smoldering crater. His son was nowhere to be seen. Hissing at the pain every little movement caused, Phil turned to survey the rest of the room

The world stilled for a moment. 

Wilbur was sprawled against what had been the front of the button room, unmoving.

“Wil,” he tried to say. The word tore at his seared throat, his voice silent to his ringing ears. 

There was no answer. No, that wasn’t true. He probably just couldn’t hear the boy’s response over the white noise in his ears. He had to have said something. Phil stumbled closer and sank to his knees, reaching for his limp body.

He gently turned Wilbur over and oh--

Blood ran from the corner of his mouth, from his ears, from the deep, savage hole in his chest. His eyes were glossed over, staring at the ceiling but seeing nothing. 

Phil’s hands shook so badly he could barely unfasten his bag. He rifled through it, tossing out broken, soot-stained items, ignoring that every bit of contact viciously stung his hands as he searched desperately for a healing potion that hadn’t been shattered by the blast. There was nothing. He bellowed in rage, hurling the bag against the crumbled opening where the button used to be.

He stared down at his son’s peaceful, bloodied face.

“You couldn’t just let it go, could you? You couldn’t just accept the win!” Phil distantly noted that he was crying, that his hands were slick with his child’s blood, that he was clutching his body to his own chest, sobbing into Wilbur’s hair. 

He stayed like that for minutes or hours, it was impossible to know. The warmth had faded from Wilbur’s body and his blood was drying and flaking off Phil’s hands, and even the ringing in his ears had faded to a constant hum. The world outside had fallen perfectly silent.

After what felt like a lifetime, Phil gently laid Wilbur’s body onto the cold ground and stood, ignoring the aching pain in his legs. His wings were numb and as he turned to look at them, white-hot pain ripped through his back. Oh. They were ruined. His feathers were gone, the skin blackened and raw. He should probably go find a regeneration potion. He looked away.

Stumbling over the broken ground, the man walked to the hole in the wall and sat at the edge of the crater. He stared out over the landscape, at the soot-stained stone and billowing smoke. The air, once filled with shouts, fireworks, and screams of agony, was quiet. Everything was gone. The houses, the festival stalls, the podium. A scrap of blue, smoldering fabric was lying on the ground at the base of the flagpole, a tiny reminder of L’Manberg’s once proudly waving flag. He remembered how excited Wilbur had been about that flag, how many letters he’d received with carefully sketched ideas and designs, and the unreasonably long essay his son had sent about the final product and the meaning behind it. Wil had always been a natural poet, his hands built for writing, not fighting. Not pushing a button to kill everyone he’d once loved.

When had everything gone so wrong and how had Phil taken so long to notice it? How had no one seen Wilbur spiralling down into a despair so deep he’d seen complete destruction as the only solution? Why had no one stopped it? Why hadn’t he stopped it? 

The first hint of dawn peeked over the horizon, staining the sky with blood red and flaming orange. Birds were starting to awaken and dart in and out of the ruins, investigating and looking for scraps of food they would never find. The world had moved on without him. It didn’t care that his only child, whom he’d raised on his own and fought and bled for a thousand times, was lying dead in his arms. It didn’t care that a father was being forced to bury his own son, that he’s been forced to kill his son. For nothing. In the end, he had failed everyone. But the world moved on.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> (This is my first time writing fanfiction, so it's a bit rough. Feel free to point out any mistakes you notice or ways you think it could be better!)
> 
> Join the Writer's Block server and come cry about lore and fanfics with us
> 
> https://discord.gg/w9CwSK26mm


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